Middle Market Deals and how to buy, sell and raise capital from $5 to $500 million

Seth Godin posts today about what he calls a marketing concept.  The key lesson, I believe is apt for all entrepreneurs. 

Harry Acker, a billionaire entrepreneur who owns Sleepy's, a 400 store chain of mattress stores has a simple policy, according to Seth: 

If there's anything in the store, anything important, that's broken and not fixed within 72 hours (including policies, prices, inventory, whatever), his job is to pick up the phone and dial 300.

And Harry Acker, the owner, the billionaire, answers. "This is Harry." And you tell him and he fixes it.

That kind of responsibility is the hallmark of entrepreneurship.  Most entrepreneurs fail to scale that kind of commitment to a business's success.  It is inpsiring to consider that it can be done!

The story of Harry Acker can be found here on the Sleepy's web site.

An excerpt:

Long ago, in not so-far-away Brooklyn, a young boy named Harry Acker worked in his father's mattress store. He and his father knew every customer by name and business was steady. As Harry's hands worked --- hand tying knots in mattresses --- his mind wandered to the future and dreams of expanding the business. After all, America had to sleep sometime, and everyone needed a mattress. In 1957, two years after his father's death, Harry made a decision to go for the American dream. He opened one store, and then another. He called his dream Sleepy's.